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Via Afrika’s answer to SA’s poor maths results

Cape Town – As South Africa gets to grips with its poor matric mathematics results, educational publisher Via Africa announced on Thursday the launch of a tablet-based learning solution that could help change this disappointing trend.

Via Afrika announced their partnership with Tabtor, a US tablet-based learning solution that redefined education through personalised learning. The companies will work together to replicate in South Africa the dramatic maths performance improvements achieved by Tabtor users in the US, India and Jamaica.

Christina Watson, CEO of Via Afrika said: “At Via Afrika we believe that every child can do maths. In that regard, this partnership with Tabtor, aims to provide further assistance to the work being done by government officials to improve maths learning in South Africa.

“We believe that embracing technology is an integral part of ensuring South African education remains on a steadfast path towards a better tomorrow.”

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Via Afrika Tabtor Maths (Tabtor is short for Tablet Tutor), is an interactive personalised mathematics tablet-based platform that combines the best of elearning with the support of a tutor or teacher which allows learners to complete maths problems in a fun, engaging manner.

Integrating Tabtor into every classroom

Through Via Afrika, Tabtor will be available as an individualised tutoring programme for struggling learners. However, Via Afrika is already in discussions with schools across the country to integrate Via Afrika Tabtor Maths into their teaching programmes, thereby allowing hundreds of thousands of learners to benefit.

Tabtor has already been rolled out in the three Via Afrika Digital Education Centres - in rural Limpopo, Mpumalanga, and Free State - where the results have been astounding.

Via Afrika Tabtor Project Manager Heinrich Dirk explains that “unlike other apps, Via Afrika Tabtor doesn’t merely tell learners whether answers are right or wrong but rather, captures every step the learner takes to reach an answer.

“This includes how they calculated an answer and whether they’ve watched one of the instructional videos available in the app. It even captures how much time was spent thinking, in the process of calculating an answer, before the learner wrote something down.”

“Once the learner has completed a worksheet, it is then sent to be reviewed by an actual mathematics tutor employed by Via Afrika Tabtor, another of Via Afrika Tabtor’s key differentiators from other learning apps. The learning analytics technology allows tutors to review every element of the learners’ work flow. Tutors therefore analyse what led to errors, allowing them to see exactly what the learner was thinking at the time of learning and identify all problem areas.”

Within 24 hours of learners’ submitting their work, feedback is sent by the tutors who can respond with voice messages, notes and new assignments. This personalised instruction ensures that core mathematics concepts are not only covered but understood before learners move on to new material,” Dirk says.

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50% improvement in learning speed

 
CEO of Tabtor, Raj Valli, said: “With Tabtor, we see a 50% improvement in learning speed and a 65% improvement in answer accuracy. We’ve also measured dramatic increases in the number of students who report that they like maths and reductions in the number of students who report that they’re math-phobic.

“We’re excited to work with Via Afrika to deploy technology and instructor resources to achieve similar results in South Africa.”

Via Afrika Tabtor Maths is available now at the iTunes App Store for iPads and at Google Play for Android tablets.

For more information about Via Afrika Tabtor Maths, please visit www.tabtor.viaafrika.com

* Fin24 is part of Media24, which has a 70% stake in Via Afrika.

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